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No. 294: Brands must hack culture
NEW YORK — In just a few short years, Fab went from a $1 billion valuation to a $15 million fire sale.
Across eCommerce, success is more unpredictable than ever. When it comes to culture-driven products, things that worked in the past often do not work in the future – the sheer number of Avengers sequels notwithstanding. But despite the inherent unpredictability of our tastes and the complex way they interact, venture capital still places a heavy bet on pattern recognition. These patterns: be it a proprietary product, low-cost customer acquisition tactics, or the ability to reach scale fast – are hardly reliable predictors of success.
For example, Harry’s proprietary product is manufactured in its German factory. Insourcing manufacturing was a great initial way to differentiate their razors from Gillette’s low-quality but expensive razors. But, superior product quality has since become table stakes in the shaving market, with a number of startups all offering the same key features. Five years and $375 million venture dollars later, Harry’s has only 5% market share in the traditional retail sales market. It is a distant third in the online manual shave market. Not until Target provided its massive distribution muscle, did Harry’s growth begin to tilt upwards. To stay competitive in this mass market, Harry’s now needs to worry about the shelf space and brand marketing – just like the incumbent.
Dollar Shave Club, with 21% of the online market share, was not profitable when Unilever bought it in 2016. Its media-beloved Youtube ad was viewed more than 25 million times since 2012. Social media was responsible for Dollar Shave Club’s awareness but that form of media also undid its staying power. The main lesson: awareness doesn’t equal conversion and fast user growth doesn’t mean profitability.
To hack growth, startups have to – first – hack culture.
In addition to the usual signals, venture capitalists should look into whether or not a company has roots in trend or subculture. A subculture is made up of people who are more informed and passionate about a topic than anyone else. They are likely to be beta-testers, source material, and advocates for a new product or service. Cycling brand Rapha started from cycling obsessives. Apparel brand Patagonia started from the subculture of social responsibility. A deep subculture entrenchment ensures that a company can maintain and enhance its difference as it scales. Long-term defensibility has more to do with whether a company can believably connect with a community through the shared things. This takes precedence over a proprietary product or its acquisition channels.
Success also has to do with what Japanese call kuuki wo yomu or, reading the atmosphere. In the October 2013 article titled Yes, Real Men Drink Beer and Use Skin Moisturizer, Bloomberg magazine quotes Mintel’s data on the 5-year rise in the global sales of personal-care merchandise geared to men. Harry’s was founded earlier that year, Dollar Shave Club two years prior. Both of them capitalized on the shift in the culture of modern masculinity, but neither of them invented it.
The shift was already happening. As sociologist Duncan Watts notes in his research on social influence: if a society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one. But if it isn’t then almost no one can. The success of Harry’s or Dollar Shave Club didn’t have to do much with a spiffy video or on the German factory-produced razors. It had more to do with how susceptible men already were to the idea of grooming and how easily persuaded they were to invest in it.
Social influence is often mistaken for disruption.
The dynamics of how trends spread are shifting from (1) brands, media, and retailers pushing ideas to (2) mass market exploitation to the (3) networks of niches and taste communities. Both startups and VCs have to consider social processes that ultimately define success of their inventions.
In addition to engineering products and services, startups then need to engineer social influence in their market. The fastest way is to piggyback on the already existing social influence, and amplify it through go-to-market strategy that emphasizes social activity among a company’s initial following. This social activity then serves an ad for a product or service aimed at the mass audience. Luggage brand Away’s initial community of travelers – and their stories – became an ad for its products; rides of the Rapha’s Cycling Clubs are the ad for Rapha’s gear.
Social activity in a market accumulates social capital. How a social currency is going to be created and exchanged is the inherent part of business plan. It’s a business’ core value unit. And whether a company has the potential to build and trade in social currency should become part of venture capitalist’s evaluative criteria. Beauty brand Glossier’s currency is beauty preferences of its fans. Glossier’s currency is so strong that this brand is now creating the entire marketplace around it. Social currency builds scale, defensibility, and network effects.
To prevent social currency from being devalued due to the reverse network effects, companies need to maintain and grow their distinction as they scale. The best way to do this is through product and service diversification. A brand is an umbrella for a portfolio of unique products. Streetwear brand Supreme mastered the art of distinction, with a large part of its audience owning unique brand products. Product diversification increases the number of bets, reduces risk, preserves social currency, and organizes a company around the inherent unpredictability of people’s tastes.
The ultimate irony of the popular disruption narratives is that they venerate a deeply anti-social attitude. They celebrate an outsider and a renegade who “moves fast and breaks things.” But without social influence that creates the susceptible mood and allows the new products, services, and ideas to spread, there is no “disruption.” Instead of applauding the world’s outliers, we should direct our attention to the society that makes them thrive. There should be a sociologist among engineers.
Read the No. 294 curation here.
By Ana Andjelic| Edited by Web Smith. About Ana: named to Forbes CMO Next list, Ana was most recently the Chief Brand Officer of Rebecca Minkoff. She has earned her doctorate degree in sociology and worked at the world’s top advertising agencies. She’s also a frequently published author, public speaker and writer. She lives in New York City.
No. 290: On DtC brand defensibility
If you’ve seen a battle scene from a movie about knights, soldiers, and castles, you may understand the concept of an economic moat. If you watched an old war film lately, a moat is often depicted as a water-filled ditch. It typically helps to defend a fort, village, or castle. In that film, you may have seen projectiles fly toward the castle and cannons fire from atop, in return. Enemy combatants rush the castle only to encounter a deep and wide area of water, poison, hot tar, and sharp spears. As the castle faces fire on all sides, the offensive is often ineffective. The moat helped the castle defend its position.
People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.
Steve Jobs
In traditional tech, there are moats all around us. Apple builds moats into many of their hardware devices. Your Macbook prefers its Safari browser (until you otherwise designate Chrome), Apple Car Play exclusively defaulted to Apple Maps until iOS 12, and your Airpods defaulted to Apple Music unless you specified Spotify. For physical goods, there are brand moats as well. The best example happens to be at Nike.
Nike works with youth leagues to outfit elite teams, providing young players (and their parents) incentives to purchase all of their wears from the brand. The sportswear manufacturing giant outfits the NFL, the NBA, and the vast majority of NCAA sports. When fans purchase licensed apparel, consumer psychology tips in favor of Nike.
Amazon Prime has become a funnel for the retailer’s private label brands and their high margin devices. Walmart has operated at such a low cost-basis, that their most loyal consumers have little to no market substitute. Shopify attract new merchants with little revenue and fosters them along their path to $20 million per year, introducing a suite of products to keep them from replatforming.
And then there’s Whole Foods Market, who – prior to acquisition – competed in a red ocean. They succeeded for a long time by building an economic moat around their brand and user experience. For decades, Whole Foods’ economic moat was a collection of subtle advantages: nicer fixtures, a wider assortment of organic foods, great lighting, and a knowledgeable floor staff. There was little to nothing technical about the retailer’s growth, but the collection of these advantages locked customers in. An economic moat can be built by more than a company’s technological advantages.
How do you compete against a true fanatic? You can only try to build the best possible moat and continuously attempt to widen it.
Warren Buffett
The internet didn’t destroy the moat, it changed the definition. The smaller the niche, the less the competition. For products in a small niche, there’s less of a need for brand defensibility. But for product manufacturers in a red ocean, defensibility is the difference between stalling out and taking flight. Yet, brand defensibility is often deprioritized. In some cases, brands will focus on customer acquisition (at all costs), often at the expense of building a lasting economic moats.
Old consumer economy. Initially, there were three influences to consider when launching a product in this new consumer economy: brand, product, distribution, the hive, and acquisition model. Prior to the rise of direct to consumer retail, a brand’s moat consisted of these:
- brand: the impression made upon consumers. The perception created around a physical good mattered most. This impression helped brands remain top of mind between their visits to their shopping centers or the occasional television advertisement.
- product: the quality of the goods. The value created by the manufacturer influenced brand perception, customer satisfaction, and even word of mouth influence.
- old distribution: where it is sold. The better the product, the more likely that a consumer could find it anywhere. This signaled that there was consensus around the quality and durability of what is being sold.
With this model, a brand’s trajectory and defensibility was mostly predictable. This was pre-internet: before the rise of the internet and digitally native vertical brands. With the proliferation of direct to consumer brands, influences have changed.
New consumer economy. With the internet, any retailer can market, sell, and deliver physical goods. Brick and mortar distribution is no longer defensible against upstart brands. The web democratized the ability to build product-based brands. In the new consumer economy, a brand’s moat is not only its features, price, and availability. It’s a consideration of product experience, technical advantages, and brand evangelism.
If you don’t land the first and loyal 100, your brand is less likely to earn the early adopters who look like the first 100. Without early adopters, you will not achieve the attention of the masses. The first 100 are the foundation. Without the support of the 100, the masses will not adopt. Made famous by Simon Sinek, heed the diffusion of innovation theory: the early majority will not try something until someone else tries it first. Brands are judged by this early majority.
In the new brand economy, maintaining defensibility has become more complicated. In physical retailers, traditional luxury brands know their buyers’ preferences. Today, the savviest DNVBs are in direct contact with many consumers by way of customer service, email, and private messaging. They are using these channels, pricing strategies, branding to influence outcomes. Brands have optimized around, beautiful packaging (see: Lumi) fast shipping (See: ShipBob), and easy returns (See: Loop). And with these technological and brand advantages, they are siphoning the loyalty away from incumbent brands like Gillette, who are still operating under the rules of the old consumer economy.
Here are the revised influences:
- brand: the reputation of the product manufacturer. The collective sentiment of the brand’s consumers.
- product: the value created by the product. But also, the value created by the ease of purchase, the fulfillment process, and the customer follow-up upon purchase.
- new distribution: how is it sold? The better the product, the more likely that a consumer has a 1:1 relationship with the brand.
- acquisition model: how does the brand achieve meaningful foot traffic? And what is the right combination of paid and organic growth? Is organic growth sustainable?
- the hive: who is the product’s first 100? Has the brand experienced organic growth on the foundation of this digital community? Will the “100” defend the brand when skeptics criticize it?
A practical example of competition
In this recent post by Harry’s, their team addresses Gillette head on:
In the face of competition from companies like Harry’s, Gillette has lowered its prices for certain razor models. Yet, Harry’s may still be the best value if you’re looking for a 5-blade razor with a flexible head, lubrication strip, and trimmer blade—the key features many guys consider to be most important for a great shave.
How long have you been overpaying for your razors?
At Target stores, Harry’s maintains the majority of the mindshare in the men’s skincare aisles. Often in spite of Gillette’s legacy of long-term performance. And today, Procter & Gamble disclosed that the company is downsizing it’s valuable Gillette real estate in Massachusetts. Presumably, the P&G label is preparing to more efficiently compete with online-first brands that are eating into their market share.
A moat for DtC brands is the competitive advantage earned by focusing on brand, product, distribution, acquisition, and the hive – the brand’s most visible customers and product activations. This competitive advantage fuels incremental growth in established industries.
I’ve compiled two distinct lists of the DNVBs that have emerged in industries that are highly competitive: luggage, skincare, supplements, digital media, and athleisure. These brands aren’t notable because of their lack of competition; rather, they are notable because they rise above tremendous competition. Paul Munford, founder of Lean Luxe, reports on direct-to-consumer brands. He made the following selections:
- Away
- Rapha
- Soylent
- Outlier
- Wone
- Bevel
- Hodinkee
- Monocle
- Casper
- Rxbar
And here is 2PM’s list (more at our DNVB Power List):
- Away | revenue leader in the carry-on travel DNVB industry
- Casper | revenue leader in the DTC mattress space, distributorship through Target
- Harry’s | leader in the men’s shaving, effectively growing into other verticals.
- Chubbies | top performer in the men’s casual space
- Glossier | leader in makeup, a substantial amount of traffic driven organically
- Hodinkee | there isn’t a more credible community of watch journalists
- Four Sigmatic | the leader in alternative coffee sales
- Mizzen + Main |combines DtC commerce with a targeted physical retail presence
- Serena & Lily | leader in DTC furniture, organically driven by quarterly brochures
- Wone | redefined ultra-premium in athleisure by selling out of $320 leggings.
One similarity that our lists seem to share: brands’ focus on its customers. And not just traditional customer service but the incorporation of customer feedback in many of their decisions. Above and beyond price and product, a brand’s hive can influence its defensibility.
A common mistake made throughout the consumer economy is the belief that customers are won and lost on features and price – alone. It’s a product manufacturer’s responsibility to build 1:1 relationships with consumers who are power users. In our recent report on Nike’s physical retail efforts, we began with this:
I walked into the Melrose store and I didn’t think that it was for me at all. I’m not the millennial luxury consumer. And that’s who Nike’s after. The Los Angeles retail fixture is very specific to the area, in aesthetic and in offering. Every square foot of the store is built for Instagram. And for a moment, I realized that though I am a millennial, I am not the millennial that Nike pines for. This store is for them.
No. 289: Nike and hyperlocalization
A defensible product becomes consumer’s first choice. Building a community around this is very difficult but this is what separates defensible brands from the brands without it.
A common misconception is that a brand with a strong economic moat has no competition. Quite the opposite, brands with the strongest means of defensibility often have numerous competitors vying for increased sales and brand equity. What sets the one apart from the many? A focus on relationships, value, and retention – not acquisition, alone. The conversation begins when the purchase is made.
As more brands focus on DtC commerce, an economic moat does more than protect the product manufacturer from growing competition. Without an economic moat, existing customers may depart for alternative options based on price, merit, and availability. In this context for brands, defense can be the best offense.
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By Web Smith | About 2PM